


New Friends

by snobbleweb



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Ghost Zone, M/M, danny makes ghost friends, ember and danny being soft, ghost backstories, talk of death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-01-05 02:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18357008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snobbleweb/pseuds/snobbleweb
Summary: Danny makes friends with Johnny, Kitty and Ember. Sam and Tucker don't like it.





	1. Ghost Buds

**Author's Note:**

> I miiiight continue this, but I got out what I wanted to.

In and out. Danny thought to himself, he just had to take a quick run into the ghost zone. It was late and he wasn’t taking Sam and Tucker with him, figuring he should just let them sleep.  
The reason he was going in was silly, anyway. But something was bugging him. An invisible itch inside him. Was it the ghost zone? Or did he want to fight ghosts? He hadn’t fought any in over a month and thus hadn’t really used his powers since.  
With a flash, his ghost form appeared as he stood in front of the portal. It was like a breath of fresh air, the itch was gone and his body relaxed. It felt so right. He wondered if he should still go into the ghost zone, now that he felt better. But he was already here wasn’t he?  
He flew in, feeling the indescribable feeling as the atmosphere changed around him and that familiar chill traveled down his spine.  
He looked around and realized there was music playing in the distance. It sounded like Ember’s, which intrigued Danny, so he flew off in the direction of the melody.  
He arrived as a crow of ghosts erupted into a cheer. There was a large crowd of them as Ember floated above them, smiling and waving. As the cheer died down Ember’s smile faded and she began her next song. It was obvious from the beginning this song had a different tone. Her eyes were closed, and her voice sorrowful. The ghosts listened quietly.  
...Fire began, we ran we ran  
But we weren’t fast enough  
Too late to say goodbye…  
Danny stood at the back of the crowd as she sang, and could feel deep emotion coming from her lyrics, hinting there was a personal connection to what she was saying.  
Her song picked up in the middle and it became obvious she was telling her story. Her anger showing as she screamed and flame hair flared as she finished her song. The crowd cheered once again, this time with Danny too.  
The makeshift concert started to dissipate and the ghosts were flying away in droves.  
Danny approached Ember as she put away her guitar. She sensed him as he came up behind her and she spun around.  
“Phantom! Why are you here? I’m not even doing anything wrong!” She said, pulling out her guitar defensively. Danny flew up his arms in defense.  
“Woah! No I- I’m not here to fight, I was just listening to your singing,” She lowered her guitar.  
“Oh,” She squinted at him. “You don’t come here often,” She stated, he rubbed the back of his neck.  
“Maybe I should come more, I would have missed out on that performance,”  
“If you’re being sarcastic I swear to god-”  
“No! I.. Really liked it, it was so… personal,” She smiled faintly and resumed putting her guitar back.  
“So Phantom, what are you doing here anyway? I’m pretty sure no one’s gone over for a while now,”  
“Yeah! That’s kinda why I came, I guess I felt I was… missing something,”  
“You are half ghost, after all, no ghost can stay in the human world for too long without feeling the urge to return, or even interact with other ghosts,” Danny pondered that.  
“Why don’t you come hang with me? I was planning on meeting up with Johnny and Kitty,” Danny inhaled through his teeth.  
“I promise they won’t attack you, I’ll make sure of it,” She reassured and he smirked and followed her as she flew off.  
“Hey guys! Look who I brouuuught,” She said, singing the last word. They were entering a ghost lair, probably the punkiest house in existence, and inside was Johnny and Kitty lounging on the couch, watching ghost TV as shadow slept in the corner. The two looked up and gaped.  
They immediately flew up into defensive stances.  
“Woah chill! He’s come in peace, he was at my show,” They quickly relaxed, trusting Ember, and floated back into their position on the couch.  
Danny landed next to them and looked at the TV, seeing a cheesy ghost version of a reality tv show playing, complete with terrible acting.  
“What are you guys watching?” He asked.  
“SHHHH!” They both pulled him onto the couch next to them. Danny sighed and relaxed, and started paying attention to the show. Ember joined them and sat on the other side of Danny, snacking on ectoplasm popcorn.  
An hour later Danny was obsessed with the show and the four were screaming together at the TV.  
“Jake you dumb fuck!” Ember yelled and threw the remote across the room. The other three erupted in laughter.  
They binged dozens of episodes, they just couldn’t stop. All of them excluding Danny had seen all the episodes but they were thoroughly enjoying introducing him to the series.  
There was no night or day in the ghost zone, but soon the group was falling asleep on each other. Danny was the only one who needed it but the other’s liked doing it anyway.

Danny woke up and his icy breath alarmed him until he remembered where he was. He looked beside him to see the three sleeping ghosts snoring loudly. He squinted out the window and wondered what time it was. How long was he asleep? He yawned and phased out of the snuggle pile. Ember woke up and yawned dramatically.  
“Heading home huh?” She said, smiling with one eye closed. He smiled nervously.  
“Yeah, I’ve got school,” He said and she groaned at the thought. “But thank you for inviting me over, that was… Really cool,” Ember finger gunned at him in response and laid her head back down on her friends. Danny shook his head, smiling, and flew off.

When he got back, he checked the clock. 9:54. Fuck! He was extremely late for school. He phased into his room and changed back. He smelled disgusting, which was strange because he didn’t the night before. Well, if he was this late he might as well shower really fast before heading off right?

By the time he left, it was 10:35, and the third class had just started. He managed to make it to class before anything important happened in that class.  
“Fenton! I was told you were absent in your last two classes and now late to this one, mind explaining?” Lancer said impatiently, putting a hand on Fenton’s desk.  
“Sorry sir, late night,” Lancer rolled his eyes and mumbled something about teenagers before beginning his lesson. Sam and Tucker both gave him questioning looks and he shrugged.  
The lunch bell rang and Sam and Tucker were quick to corner Danny.  
“Jazz said you weren’t home this morning, what’s up?” Sam said quietly as they headed for the cafeteria.  
“I was in the ghost zone,” Danny said even quieter, and Sam and Tucker froze.  
“What?!” They said together. “Why?”  
“I was actually… Hanging out… with some ghosts,” He said, biting his lip. The two gaped at him.  
“What?!” They yelled, getting a few stares from the people in the hallway. Sam and Tucker rushed to the table.  
“Start talking buddy,” Sam said.  
“Well… I was just going into the ghost zone and then-”  
“Why did you go in?”  
“I… I don’t know, I just wanted to,” The two looked at each other, confused.  
“So anyway… Then I came across Ember doing a concert and it was… whoo, emotional,” Sam rolled her eyes.  
“So after I talked to her and she invited me to her lair-”  
“That doesn’t sound shady at all,” Sam mused, Danny ignored her.  
“To hang with her, Johnny and Kitty,” Tuck nearly choked on his milk.  
“And then we watched ghost TV,” he said and started eating.  
“That’s it? All night and morning?”  
“Well, we fell asleep after a while,” The two did a double take.  
“You had a sleepover with your arch enemies?” Sam pinched between her eyes. Danny just sipped his milk.  
“It was nice, they’re actually really cool,”  
“Do you remember all they did? Like erasing all the guys? Or hypnotizing people? Or just general destruction?” Danny bit his lip as Sam spoke.  
“All I’m saying is they’re not just mindless evil, they’re like me,” Sam and Tucker had no reply to that. They both wondered to themselves if that meant Danny felt he was dead, and how their implications that ghosts are mindless and black and white affected him.  
They didn’t talk much the rest of the day and after Danny went home, he felt drawn to the basement. His friends hadn’t invited him to hang out and he would probably spend the rest of the day doing homework and playing video games, so why not go check out the ghost zone?  
Transforming, he flew into the portal. He immediately sought out Ember’s house, passing a few ghosts on the way giving him wary looks. As he got close he heard something he couldn’t discern. As he got closer he realized it was crying. He considered booking it, but it felt wrong just to ignore it, so he flew closer. He gently knocked on her door and the crying stopped. After a moment the door flung open, her eyes flaring in anger.  
“Who-” She said but stammered as she saw Danny. She blushed a dark blue.  
“Oh, Phantom, it’s you,”  
“Sorry for just showing up, I had nothing else to do,” He shrugged weakly and looked at the ground. She smiled and let him in. He sat on the couch, soon accompanied by Ember, and they sat in silence. Danny noticed Ember had changed, wearing her hair down and a more comfortable looking top. And less makeup, still plenty for normal standards, but not as outrageous as her normal look.  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Danny asked and Ember let out a loud sigh as if she had been holding in that whole time.  
“I figured you would ask that,” She said and fidgeted her hand on the cushion.  
“I know you don’t know a lot about ghost culture, but the… matter of our death is a sore topic and one we tend to dwell on,” Ember explained and Danny looked down.  
“I can see why… I know I didn’t officially die when I “died” but it was painful and changed my life rather drastically, and that was only a half death!” Ember looked up at him.  
“You died?”  
“Yeah kinda, I came back though I think? It’s complicated,” Ember gaze him an amused and confused look.  
“Was it a painful death?” Danny looked at her wide eyed.  
“Sorry if that was too personal, I know not all ghosts like to talk about it,”  
“No it’s fine, I just wasn’t expecting it, no one asks me about it,” He pauses. “It was,” Ember leaned against him.  
“So was mine, it’s scary, and scarier knowing you can never go back to how it was before,” They sat in comforting silence.  
“You know what’s crazy?” Danny said, and Ember looked up expectingly.  
“I died from my parent’s machine and now they hunt me!” Ember raised an eyebrow.  
“Your parents the crazy ghost hunters? That’s how you died?”  
“Yeah, it was their ghost portal, my death was what turned it on,” Ember looked appalled.  
“I kinda feel bad for using it now,” She said, chuckling nervously. He waved her off.  
“Speaking of which, what you did really wasn’t that bad, the first one, and the second? Well, guys can be dicks,” Ember laughed.  
“Correct, you know Skulker?”  
“Of course I do, he’s always hunting me!” Danny said, laughing.  
“He broke up with me for being too emotional! Like he isn’t the biggest drama queen in the ghost zone,”  
“What a douche! I should have kicked his butt twice as hard and maybe left him in the thermos a while longer,” They both laughed. Slowly they quieted down again.  
“Since you told me how died, I figure it’s only fair I tell you mine,” she said, shuffling awkwardly. “It was at a concert, there was a fire, and there were too many people to get out in time,” Danny rubbed her shoulder as she looked away.  
“I wanted to be a musician, but my parents wanted me to be “normal” and pursue and more lucrative career,” She rolled her eyes. “They might have been right, seeing as if I hadn’t gone to that concert I wouldn’t have died,”  
“No screw that, they shouldn’t have pushed down your dreams, you couldn’t have known about what would happen,”  
“Thanks Phantom, and I’m sure your parents didn’t mean to kill you and hunt you,” She said, nudging him playfully.

After they hung out Danny went home and managed to get half of his homework done before he fell asleep at his desk. He decided not to tell his friends about his day with Ember and told them he was up late playing video games. And Danny continued to visit the ghost zone frequently, growing quite close to the Kitty, Johnny, and Ember. During that time he had learned more about them. Like that Kitty had died by being killed by her boyfriend and Johnny had died in a motorcycle accident, killing another person which became the shadow that followed him around. Johnny and the shadow became friends after years of hatred and resentment. And Johnny and Kitty had dated but broke up because of Kitty’s painful past in dating, but they were getting used to just being friends. Also that there was a rumor going around about Skulker and Technus being rather close, which caused the group much amusement.


	2. Just Normal Human Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course Danny can't just get away with spending so much time in the ghost zone, so this chapter deals with how he deals with his friends and family. More chapters will follow after this.

Since time didn’t work in the ghost zone, Danny ended up being late for everything in the human world ever since he started hanging out with his new friends. And people noticed.  
“Danny, we need to have a talk,” Maddie said as Danny rushed past his family seated at the table.  
“Can we do it later? I’m kinda tired from school,” Danny guessed that wouldn’t work, but it was worth a shot.  
“No. Now.” Maddie ordered. Danny approached the table as slowly as possible and shyly sat down.  
“What’s up?” He asked, trying to act like he didn’t know exactly what they wanted to talk about.  
“I think you know what’s up,” Maddie said, her voice getting more and more hostile. Jazz and Jack looked nervous, like they knew how mad Maddie was. Danny just looked down, looking very guilty.  
“Let’s start with where you were last night.”  
Danny looked up, his heart racing. He’d been caught.  
“I was at Tucker’s!” He lied.  
“Don’t you dare lie to us Daniel Fenton!” Maddie yelled, and Jazz looked disappointed.  
“Danny, Mom called Sam and Tucker’s parents, we know you weren’t with them,”  
Danny sighed, trying to think of what to tell them.  
“I made some new friends,”  
“If you’re lying to us again, I swear-”  
“I’m not! I did, and I’ve been hanging with them, and sometimes time gets away from us,”  
“Danny boy, it’s great to make friends, but you can’t let it interfere with school,”  
Danny looked down in shame. He wished he could tell them his struggles with feeling alive and feeling like he belonged, but he couldn’t.  
They ended up grounding him, with a strict curfew and surveillance to make sure he went to school on time.  
The next day at school, Sam and Tucker could tell Danny was having a bad day, so they brought him behind the school to talk.  
“Hey, you okay dude?” Tucker asked, nudging Danny’s shoulder.  
“Hey you’ve been, like, ignoring us all week, and now you look like death- I mean, sad,” Sam said, quickly correcting herself on the mention of Danny = death. Danny avoided their gaze.  
“I suppose I haven’t really been a very good friend, I’m sorry,” He took a deep breath.  
“I’ve been wondering… If I really belong in the human world. I feel like a part of me left when I died in the portal, and I haven’t really felt like I belonged ever since,”  
Sam and Tucker looked at each other, devastated.  
“Danny… We had no idea,” Sam said, Tucker nodding in agreement.  
“Yeah, because I didn’t tell you, I should have… You guys have been like the main thing keeping me connecting me here,”  
His friends hugged him tightly.  
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Sam asked.  
“I wish I knew, I feel lost, and I don’t know what to do, there’s no self help books on being half dead,”  
“Do you… feel better when you’re in the ghost zone?” Tucker asked, Danny looked up at him.  
“I- Yeah, I do, I feel like my old self, like I belong,”  
Sam choked on a sob and looked away, trying to keep herself composed.  
“Sam?” Danny said, grabbing her shoulder, worried.  
“Sorry-” She could barely talk through her wracking sobs. “I don’t know why I’m crying so hard,”  
Danny and Tucker, held her as she worked through it. Eventually, her tears slowed and she wiped her face.  
“Sorry, I feel silly,”  
“Don’t! It’s okay to be sad,” Danny reassured her. The school bell rang out loud over them. Sam started more aggressively wiping her face. She breathed in deep.  
“Do you look like I was just having a break down?” She looked at them. Her makeup was a mess, wiped all over her face, and her eyes red. Tucker and Danny looked at each other nervously.  
“Uhhh,”  
“Great, awesome, cool, I’ll go fix myself in the bathroom, can you guys walk me there? So I don’t look as miserable,”  
“Of course,” Tucker said, and they both grabbed her hands, acting like body guards as they escorted her to the bathroom.  
“Thanks guys, you can go to class, I know you’re parents would kill you if you missed any more school Danny,”  
“Heh thanks… See ya in a bit?” She nodded and Danny and Tucker headed off to class.

The three didn’t have a chance to talk again until the next day as Danny had to head directly home from school.

“So how long are you grounded for?” Tucker asked through a mouth full of food.  
“I don’t know, possibly forever,”  
“We’re praying for you,” Sam said mockingly, and the three laughed.  
“Thanks, I just hope my new ghost friends don’t come over looking for me, we we’re gonna marathon the rest of this dumb ghost show,”  
Sam and Tucker suddenly went awkwardly silent.  
“What’s wrong?” Danny asked, looking between his friends, confused.  
“You’re not, like, replacing us right?...” Sam said, fidgeting with her food.  
“No! Of course not, you guys are still my best friends, I just… I just like hanging out with them too…”  
“I mean, that’s fair, I guess it’s just always been just us, it’s weird to have one of us suddenly have other friends, you know?” She admitted. Danny didn’t know what to say.  
“Maybe we should try to be friends with them? So we don’t have to like, fight over Danny,” Tucker suggested. Danny looked unsure.  
“We can try it, but they often talk shit about humans, saying how great they have it, being alive and all, which is actually why they like messing with you,”  
Sam and Tucker looked at him, a little stunned.  
“Did you just say “you” like you’re... not… human?”  
Danny blushed and looked away, very embarrassed.   
“Sorry, the whole fitting in issue messing with me,” He said, rubbing the back of his neck. The bell rang and everyone started walking around them.  
“Well! I guess we should head to class!” Danny said nervously, bolting up and rushing off in the crowd. Sam and Tucker looked at each other.  
“So, we’re gonna talk about what just happened with him right?” Tucker asked.  
“Oh, definitely,” Sam said, getting up to head to class.


End file.
